8 years! It was still called "Startup News" back then. The front page when I joined looks very much like it does today -- a few articles about Google (6!), some startup-y articles, some politics, some business-y articles, some pure programming articles, etc. A good mix, but things are still pretty good today.
I remember exactly why I joined, incidentally. With increasing regularity, /r/programming was making me very mad. I would post a detailed correct answer to someone's question, only for some troll to immediately reply with some insult and "proof" that I was totally wrong, even though the proof was totally wrong. It happens once, fine. It happens every single time I comment, I'm out. I have not been back in 8 years.
I will admit this happens from time to time on HN, which is unfortunate because I like to comment and really only know what I'm talking about when it's programming-related. But it hasn't made me mad enough to leave, only to nostalgically think back to the good-old days.
(I did start using Reddit again, too, but I only read unpopular subreddits. I can handle /r/AskReddit for some time killing, but things like /r/flying and /r/amateurradio are very pleasant communities with enough activity to be interesting a couple times a week. /r/anime is infuriatingly stupid, /r/awwnime is much more tolerable.)
6 years for me -- the mix of articles is indeed similar, though the titles show how the vibe of the community has changed. Back then it really felt like a gathering of plucky upstarts and misfits. We were into a lot of things which are mainstream now, but niche and weird at the time.
"Paul Graham and Y Combinator are on the cover of June's Inc Magazine" - this was exciting news back then! YC was a really speculative effort, even in the tech world. I wish I'd applied in the early days!
"Chrome Now Available for Mac or Linux : Hackers Only" - goes to show how many established products were back then only used by the nerdy early adopters
"20 Developers to follow on Twitter" - again, back then I only knew a few people outside of tech circles who used Twitter, and a lot of people hadn't even heard of it
"How I Got A Job From A Blog Comment" - this also wouldn't be news today
"Google Wave “is anti-Web”" - one speculative product that didn't make it
It's interesting looking back. I discovered this place as a first year CS student, and startups as a career path were not on the radar for 95% of my classmates at the time.
Rails was still fairly unknown, IE6 was a big problem for web developers, jQuery was the exciting new Javascript framework. All this meant that the standards for web apps were lower and it was easier to ship an interesting hack and get people to check it out.
> /r/anime is infuriatingly stupid, /r/awwnime is much more tolerable.
Well that's not too surprising when the latter has almost no comments. You could try r/trueanime - it's smaller and smarter, though it does tend to attract long-winded people.
What anime community do you use now? r/anime was always terrible. I've "outgrown" 4chan, but /a/ is still the best community I know of. I mostly just do my own thing and talk to my few friends who also watch.
I remember exactly why I joined, incidentally. With increasing regularity, /r/programming was making me very mad. I would post a detailed correct answer to someone's question, only for some troll to immediately reply with some insult and "proof" that I was totally wrong, even though the proof was totally wrong. It happens once, fine. It happens every single time I comment, I'm out. I have not been back in 8 years.
I will admit this happens from time to time on HN, which is unfortunate because I like to comment and really only know what I'm talking about when it's programming-related. But it hasn't made me mad enough to leave, only to nostalgically think back to the good-old days.
(I did start using Reddit again, too, but I only read unpopular subreddits. I can handle /r/AskReddit for some time killing, but things like /r/flying and /r/amateurradio are very pleasant communities with enough activity to be interesting a couple times a week. /r/anime is infuriatingly stupid, /r/awwnime is much more tolerable.)